


look above

by valdera



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Homesickness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 03:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7997479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valdera/pseuds/valdera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance spends his days stargazing and thinking, drifting to and fro, wondering if he'll ever make it back home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	look above

**Author's Note:**

> really quick fic for voltron!  
> enjoy!

Days, Lance realizes, go by a lot slower in the Castle of Lions, especially when there’s no sun to tell you something along the lines of ‘ _hey, dude, take care of yourself and sleep_ ’. So Lance, for the most part, blindly stumbles around trying to trust his body clock because even though it’s shitty, it’s a hell of a lot better than anyone else. Pidge is a fucking demon and lives on like, what, less than an hour of sleep (luckily there’s an Altean equivalent of coffee or he’s sure they all would be dead by now). Keith doesn’t even sleep properly so Lance refuses to trust him with this, and he’s completely convinced that Shiro never sleeps, which is really more than a little concerning. Hunk is great and all, but Lance finds that even if he finds out the right time to sleep, most of it is spent staring at the wall above him, feeling that unsettling pit in his stomach because he’s not quite here but he’s not quite there yet either, and so he sighs, gets up, and wanders.

And this is where Lance finds himself, dragging himself through the hallways, too awake to be asleep but too tired to try training or anything. Most days, he busies himself with being Lance and doing what he does best—being awesome. Other times, it’s standard hero business, but some days, training is over and Lance is left alone, with nobody to be _Lance_ with, and his footsteps echo through the hallway.

He’s looking out at space and looking at the dead stars and dead planets, and then something sick and frightening curls in his throat and he turns away, trying not to cry. He wants to go back to Earth, but he knows that they’d be leading the Galra right to his homeland if he did that.

Lance swallows it down and tries not to cry.

Somehow, he ends up at the room where the Balmeran crystal is, and for a moment, he lets himself be lost in it, staring at it glowing blue and ethereal. He flinches without meaning to, thinking of the explosion, but all of a sudden, he remembers the other room, and then he darts out of the room, feet moving faster, faster, _faster_ until his surroundings whiz by.  

The room looks like a thousand other rooms; random Altean tech he can’t make sense of, and mostly empty.

But as he looks at the stand in the center, his heart feels like it’s about to burst and he rushes towards it. Hesitantly, he places his hand on the panel. It hums in response, and the map crackles to life in front of him, and then suddenly there is an entire universe that surrounds him, full of stars and planets and life and then Lance finally feels a little like he’s home.

 

* * *

 

Stargazing becomes something of a routine. It’s Coran that finds him first, watches him scrolling past galaxies and marveling at all the places that are teeming with life, finds him gazing longingly at Earth and then looking away, watches him and does nothing but sit next to him and let him talk.

And Lance talks.

He talks about his family and the ocean rolling off in waves and the scent of the flowers in his garden and he babbles about the Garrison and then he looks up and watches the stars blink in and out of existence.

People die. People live.

Coran gives him a soft smile and Lance murmurs, " _Thank you_ ," with such force he feels like everything will break.

Eventually, Coran brings a cup of water with him and gives it to Lance, asking what rain is like. Lance cups the water in his hands and revels I the cool touch as he lets most of it roll of his fingers. Steadying his feet, he lets little droplets fall from his fingers into Coran's hair, and he smiles at the wonder in his eyes.

Something feels a little bit more whole.

 

* * *

 

He's lying flat on his back and looking out into the vastness when he first sees it, and something finally clicks, like he's wanted to do this for years.

First, there are stars, twinkling bright, and then his eyes follow around a curve of stars until a cluster of lights turns into Keith, and then Red is there, and then something in Lance's chest swells up and he grins, wide and open and happy.

A few second later, a thought crosses him.

There are no constellations, he realizes.

There is just him.

He’s no longer watching from Earth he realizes, and the stars are no longer out of reach. He’s just looking up at the stars from a center that doesn’t exist.

Something breaks.

Lance finds out that so many of the stars he knows are dead and gone and have been for longer than he has lived, that the stars he had looked out at every day and dreamed of reaching never even existed.

But then he looks and he looks and there is Keith and his constellation is sparkling and Lance looks and looks and he sees so much life that he pushes his tears down.

And so he looks at the stars and looks and looks until Hunk and Pidge and Shiro and Allura are up there in the sky, and then he finds his family looking down at him and something in him feels a little bit more complete.

 

* * *

 

Keith, surprisingly enough, is the one who finds him next.

“Hey,” he whispers.

Lance looks at him, feels the weight that grounds him down. “Hey,” he croaks.

Thankfully, Keith doesn’t say anything. He’s looking up at the world again and there is Earth at the center, a blinking blue light far, far away from him.

He misses everything—misses his family, misses his Earth, misses his _life_.

But this is his life now, as much as he loves, and as much as he hates it.

He looks up again, and then he is small and pitiful and _alone_ again, and he is _terrified_ because _what if he dies_ and then it feels like he can’t _breathe_ anymore and everything is spinning out of _control_ and—

_And_ —

He’s _homesick_.

Lance cries, buries his face in his knees and cries his heart out, hiccupping and gasping, thinks about how sad it is that he’s so weak about it, thinks and thinks and thinks until he hates absolutely _everything_.

“-ce. Lance. Lance.”

It’s Keith’s voice that brings him back to reality. “Yes?” he forces out.

Keith places a hand on his back, and the touch provides a little comfort. “Do you want to talk about it?” Keith asks.

Lance hiccups again, and takes in a deep breath, trying to steady himself. Keith’s hand is rubbing circles on his back, and he exhales, closing his eyes and opening them. “I miss Earth,” he admits.

“I’m sorry,” Keith murmurs, and that’s all he says, but the silence feels warm and as he’s sitting there with Keith, something blooms.

 

* * *

 

He’s okay.

Well, not completely.

But he’s doing a bit better now, he thinks, when he looks up at the sky and looks at the universe and remembers that everything around him is full of wonder. Keith and him stargaze together sometimes now, and Lance likes the feeling (he also finds out that he really, really, _really_ likes Keith, and somehow he’s not nervous about that). Sometimes the others will drop by, and Lance feels like _home_ is a lot more than Earth.

He looks up at Earth, thinks of the people who might just be thinking of him, and everything feels a little bit better.

**Author's Note:**

> im in voltron hell  
> find me @sonnets-of-beauty on tumblr!


End file.
